Are you a graduate or a working professional looking to move ahead in your career? Some graduates prefer gaining work experience before opting for a post-graduation course, whereas others may decide to take up a master’s degree immediately after graduation. Most working professionals will eventually start thinking about a postgraduate degree, such as the MBA, especially if they are looking at progressing in their careers.

There are various modes of pursuing an MBA – full-time, part-time professional, distance or even executive. The dilemma, most often, is having to choose between a part-time MBA and a full-time MBA.

A part-time MBA is a course that allows its candidates the flexibility of working alongside studying. Participants can continue to draw a steady flow of income without taking a break. On the other hand, in a full-time programme, the opportunity cost is that participants will have to leave their jobs or take a sabbatical. The primary objective of both programmes is to help participants gain varied experiences such as interacting with a diverse peer group, and honing leadership and strategic thinking skills which would prepare them for senior management roles.

Before deciding which type of MBA is suitable, it is worth one’s time to understand and appreciate the differences between the part-time and full-time modes of study. We have outlined the key differences between a part-time MBA and a full-time MBA, highlighting the benefits of a part-time professional MBA:

Profile of Participants

Full-time MBA programmes are predominantly taken up by the younger crowd, with less working experience. Participants are typically around 28 years of age with 6 years of work experience. The average participant of a part-time MBA, however, is 30 years old, with 8.5 years of work experience.

Minimal Downtime

Both part-time and full-time MBA programmes follow a similar curriculum. However, part-time courses offer more options, such as weekend classes, online classes and weekday classes. This makes it more schedule-friendly for working professionals.

The Nanyang Professional MBA (PMBA), for instance, is a part-time programme which incorporates a career-friendly 18-month timetable. It encompasses weekend modules, where classes are only held on two weekends per month. This eliminates the need for out-of-office days and leave, making it suitable for the demanding schedule of full-time working professionals. Term breaks also coincide with local school holidays. This is an added advantage if you are a parent – you can take vacations with your family without compromising your MBA journey!

Immediate Application of Concepts

Most part-time MBA participants are working professionals, and this allows them to apply classroom learning immediately in their jobs. The curriculum offered at Nanyang PMBA programme suits specific business contexts. With integrated learning and exploration as the key takeaways, the learning process in Nanyang Business School’s PMBA programme is categorised across three areas – Business Fundamentals, Strategic Insights and Experiential Learning.

These three key areas enable participants to understand businesses and their strategies, tackle and conquer complex issues and learn about business scenarios hands-on. Participants also get the opportunity to be coached and mentored by our faculty, which comprises leading C-level executives who bring their industry expertise into the learning curriculum.

Full-time MBA participants will have the opportunity to apply these concepts during simulations of corporate scenarios and upon returning to their careers post-MBA.

The minimal downtime and real-world applications of a part-time MBA programme makes it the ideal choice for a working professional. If you desire to strike a balance between family, career and a postgraduate degree, you can find out more about the benefits of our Nanyang PMBA programme here.

Africa, home of some of the world’s most impressive wildlife, is a beautiful continent with breathtaking scenery. But the poverty, exploitation and, in some cases, war has hindered its progress. But how do you wake up a sleeping beauty and bring out its best?

The Singapore Business Federation invited Nanyang Business School students and industry leaders to a breakfast session with Guillaume Kavaruganda and Hazel Ngubeni, the ambassadors of Rwanda and South Africa respectively. They shared their views on what is needed to accelerate progress in Africa.

Rwanda on the move

Mr Kavaruganda says the abolition of the excessive protectionism of African markets and a proactive transition to free movement of goods and people in Eastern Africa are the priorities to become competitive. Yet, Rwanda, like its neighbours, still struggles to address structural issues such an unstable energy supply, a lack of housing for its 12m people, poor infrastructure and a deficient education system.

Even though Rwanda prides itself as one of the few African nations to have achieved political stability, there is still a long way to go to win investors’ trust

But the government is aware of its responsibility to provide basic care for its people and has made smart moves to improve the living conditions. Recently, access to basic healthcare has been extended to 85 per cent of the population; a drastic improvement that will not go unnoticed by foreign investors. Yet even though Rwanda prides itself as one of the few African nations to have achieved political stability, there is still a long way to go to win investors’ trust.

Africa is more than gold and diamonds

Having shed light on the forward-looking initiatives that Rwandan officials have brought on its way, Hazel Ngubeni broadened the perspective on the challenges and multiple investment opportunities across Africa.

She projected a map of Africa to visualise the natural resources to be found in each of the 54 African countries. “This is how people see us,” she jokes. “There is gold, diamonds, more gold, and more diamonds.” But Africa is much more than precious metals and gems.

By investing in intercontinental highways, water integration and improved energy supply, the continent shows that it is seriously concerned with improving infrastructure to foster growth of its service and manufacturing industries, and promote trade within Africa and with foreign partners.

Rwanda has converted development opportunities into growth, with annual real growth of gross domestic product averaging about 8 per cent between 2001 and 2015. But South Africa has reached a stage of stagnation and complacency. Despite its past progress, its currency, the rand, is crashing; its credit rating is rapidly approaching “junk” status; and South Africans have taken to the streets. But what issue to tackle first?

Johan Burger, director of the Centre for African Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that the greatest challenge in managing South Africa is setting priorities to tackle social issues.

However, South Africa is willing to learn from its peers and assess high-tech solutions to address its most pressing problem: the provision of adequate healthcare in remote areas. Using innovations, such as drug delivery via drones, the country seeks to emerge from its crisis by meeting the basic needs of the rural population and preparing its people for a much bigger task: economic growth.

The last course I have to pass before graduating from Nanyang Business School is a 12-week operations class. As more consumers around the globe demand good quality products at a low-cost, establishing cost-efficient and reliable operations is a fixed part of every corporate agenda to gain an edge over the competition.

Thus, aspiring executives must not only be good strategists, but also need to be prepared for managing the day-to-day operations.

Yet many multinational corporations are criticised for their negligence in operations management, and we read more and more about the difficulties balancing cost and quality. Climate change, depleting natural resources and labour strikes are just some of the challenges faced. But how can you prepare MBA students for a multitude of operational issues in just 12 weeks? How do you engage a bunch of young professionals in a subject that does not sound nearly as sexy as any of the popular strategy design courses, but has an even higher impact on corporate success? The answer is simple: you play a game.

What I saw were just three machines, an order book and a reporting tool that displays real-time analysis of my team’s performance. It all seemed so simple.

Tapping into the competitive spirit of MBA students always works, and soon after firing the starting gun of the Littlefield simulation game, enthusiasm for operations issues increased notably. The class is split into groups and the game is played over the course of one week. The goal of each group is to maximise revenues from customer orders while maintaining optimal machine capacity utilisation. Yet, the only decisions a team can make is to buy or sell machines. The catch? One hour in the Littlefield world represents a full day in real life, so inevitably you end up monitoring the game before breakfast, skip lunch to check the capacity utilisation figures, and wake up at night to make sure operations are still running smoothly.

When typing the key word Littlefield into Google search, I stumbled across a scary YouTube video of a particularly committed student who fully dedicates himself to the game, monitoring the virtual factory floor 24/7. But he drops all other responsibilities, neglects his girlfriend and eventually loses his mind. With this off-putting story in mind, I am hesitant to engage in this exercise and approached the game with scepticism. However, what I saw were just three machines, an order book and a reporting tool that displays real-time analysis of my team’s performance. It all seemed so simple.

For seven days, I logged into the Littlefield game and saw the reporting graphs climbing up and down, and found my team’s ranking moving in sync. Staring at the chart that reflects the capacity utilisation of my factory left me in awe, and even after 10 months of business school I feel helpless. Puzzled by the uncertainties of Littlefield, my team decided to follow the most complacent of all strategies: do nothing. While ignoring our managerial responsibilities seemed to work well for us for a while, we eventually dropped to the bottom of the field and finished the game as the second last team. Still, Littlefield taught me crucial lessons on operations management, and life itself:

If you want to go far, go together. Only working with a team leads to success.

You are never prepared enough. Making decisions when uncertain is an art you have to master.

Even simple set-ups bear risks. Be proactive, bold, and balance a holistic overview and attention to detail when it comes to managing daily challenges.

Doing nothing is never a good idea. Observe, analyse, act and react to succeed.

I was there because I wanted to deal with issues caused by my frenzied lifestyle: insomnia, coffee addiction, hair loss, you name it.

In the first lesson I discovered the average person’s attention span is incredibly short. Since the digital revolution, most people can only focus for just eight seconds. This is even less than a goldfish, which has an attention span of nine seconds.

It seems the human race needs to relearn attentiveness and break some of its unhealthy habits. Dividing our precious attention between the virtual and real world, television ads, phones and all other distractions of daily life, we have lost the ability to just sit and be in the moment.

At the time of the workshop, I was an MBA student close to graduation, I confess that I felt unable to just “be” in the present, but rather contemplate the next move. Simply being, not doing anything, poses a seemingly insurmountable challenge to the self-titled workaholics.

The downsides of multitasking are obvious — we pick up only 20 to 30 per cent of the information available. We can waste valuable time and resources by overthinking merely for the sake of thinking about something — a mental activity which serves no purpose.

In his soothing voice, Fr Freeman outlined his strategy for dealing with stress: meditation which provides a moment of silence in a noisy world. This has the power to reduce anxiety, increase productivity and improve human relationships, Fr Freeman explained.

But where do I find the time to meditate in my jam-packed schedule?

Fr Freeman’s response was simple: you never have time, you make time. Stress is a choice, and most of us choose to be stressed, because this simply is what everybody else does. Throughout the day, we volunteer immediate attention to every small agitation in our environment, and hence become creators of our own misery.

‘The downsides of multitasking are obvious — we pick up only 20 to 30 per cent of the information available’

However, meditation corrects this tendency towards distraction, and resets our busy minds. It is certainly no coincidence that meditation and medication start with the same prefix “med-”, Greek for care and attention.

Under instruction, I sat with my eyes closed, back straight, hands folded on my lap, and soundlessly recited a mantra. Pretty soon I discovered just how difficult it is to focus for 10 minutes.

My first steps into the world of meditation became an incredible journey of discovery and self-reflection. Taking baby steps on the long walk to peace, kindness, joy, patience, self control and many more big words, I discovered how difficult it is to just focus for 10 minutes straight. My mind wandered again and again, and seemed to resist stubbornly any effort to empty my brain’s Ram.

After two days of practising meditation, I left the workshop feeling deeply impressed with the world of imagination and inner peace that opens up to those who regularly meditate, but at the same time I am utterly ashamed of my inability to shut down. However, I also felt much calmer.

Yet, drawn in by the science of meditation and its positive impact on the mind and the work of successful leaders, I vowed to practise regularly — and made a promise to beat the goldfish in the discipline of attention.

Today, I still get distracted during meditation, but I appreciate that taking this regular time out allows me to relax and withstand stressful situations.

It’s now more obvious than ever that you can’t get anywhere without networking. And it isn’t just about networking when you need a job or new business, but more about making networking a daily activity. Be it online or one-to-one, you need to be prepared.

Here are some valuable tips to get you geared up.

1. Keep Business Cards Ready

This is a rule that applies to all situations – whether you’re headed to the grocery store or an important meeting, you need to have your business cards with you. You never know whom you’ll bump into. If you are self-employed and have the chance to get your own cards made, make sure that your card has a neat design and isn’t cluttered with information. The basics such as name, email address, designation and phone number should be good enough. Use your creative side to make one that stands out without looking like a silly attempt at art.

2. Remember Names and Faces

Sure it’s hard to remember every name and face that you come across, but a few tricks could prevent trouble. Jot down names and some physical characteristics that you could use to identify the individuals at a later date. If you forget even before you get a hold of your address book, employ another approach such as linking a famous person with the same name with them. Imagine meeting somebody who could be your ticket to a new job or internship and not recalling his/her name. Ouch!

3. Be Active on Social Media

Create accounts on as many social media websites as you can manage to update regularly. If you think you can cut out time for just two, do that. There’s no point having an account but hardly logging on or contributing to the discussion. Post frequently and interact with others in the industry.

4. Don’t be Picky

Some people make the mistake of ignoring junior executives and classmates, as they seem rather unimpressive. Don’t make that mistake. You never know where a person can go and how they can help you. For example, you could be looking for a new job two years later and one of these seemingly useless people could be already working there and would be nice enough to put in a word for you.

5. Attend Events

Building relationships while you are at work every day doesn’t end the networking process. You also need to get out there and meet people beyond work. Sign up for industry events and see if you can get into conferences. In college and B-school, join special interest groups and participate in activities that are conducted through the year. These are places where you can benefit from lots of advice and feedback on your ideas. Check out what kind of events you’ll get to attend at NBS here: http://www.nbs.ntu.edu.sg/News_Events/Events/Pages/Events.aspx

6. Adopt a New Mindset

Don’t start all conversations thinking about what you can get. You need to think about giving as well. Relationships should be mutually beneficial. Plus, giving will get you good karma in the form of referrals. Be confident, helpful and open with your peers, colleagues and even people you’ve just met.

7. Communicate Well

You are not a salesman. Of course you’re selling your skills and educational background when you network, but you need to learn how to hold a conversation that has a light, informal tone. The key is to let the other person know that you are willing to give the time to get to know them before talking about what exactly you want. That doesn’t mean that you should skip your pitch; just warm up first.

8. Listen More

Give the other person a chance to talk. Don’t keep on talking without waiting for answers. Ask questions as well. In fact, have a mental list of questions ready for all times and all kinds of people but don’t jump at them. Demonstrate interest with your facial and body language.

9. Always Follow Up

The first face-to-face meeting isn’t the end of networking. Keep their cards in a special place. Add them to your LinkedIn contacts and other social media lists. Call or send an email a week later, after you figure out what you can connect about. Staying in touch on a regular basis is important, so don’t let it seem like you only make the effort to communicate when you really need something.

10. Don’t Neglect Your Current Network

Never take anybody for granted. That applies to your career path just as much as to your personal life. Keep in touch with the people who’ve brought you closer to your goals already like high school teachers, college professors, internship supervisors and so on. Let them know that you appreciate what they’ve done for you. You could meet them once in a while and keep them updated on your progress. Introduce them to each other or to others they could form working relationships with. Who knows? Maybe one of these older acquaintances could connect you to somebody helpful in the future.

It isn’t difficult to master the art of networking if you keep these tips in mind. You’ll have to network effectively as you continue your career path, so why not start now?

After a successful series of events, celebrations, competitions, trips and presentations, Student ExCo members & Club Co-Chairs of the Nanyang MBA Cohort 2015-16 came together to celebrate a great performance round the year!

On the bright noon of 18th May’16, in the last week of MBA for the Class of 2016, a bunch of student leaders met for lunch at the “Food for thought” restaurant in Singapore´s Botanical Garden.

The past year was certainly a roller coaster ride for all MBA students and the efforts put in by elected members of the student council deserved a grand celebration. Having successfully organised and hosted multiple school-internal and interscholastic events, the idea was to come together and appreciate each other as a team for one last time. The class mates celebrated their success and recalled beautiful memories that all individuals weaved during 2015-2016 MBA life.

Veronica (VP Finance, and full-time MBA student) brought all student leaders together and invited the group to Food For Thought, one of the best guarded secrets when it comes to restaurants in Singapore. After a splendid lunch, Veronica surprised all graduates with her artistic skills and presented beautifully designed “Thank You Note Cards”, on which the ExCo members could leave a message for their fellow students. When writing farewell notes, circulating the individual´s cards across the table, and conveying our appreciation and well wishes for future, the formerly excited crowd realized that the MBA journey was coming to an end – and a wave of nostalgia hit the group.

Post hogging on desserts, we all conveyed our regards and thank you to Veronica for making this team lunch such a memorable experience! Thereafter, Mr. President, Deep (Full-time MBA student in the Strategy & Innovation Track) and Vice President Aditya (Full-time MBA student in the Banking and Finance Track) gave touching speeches, thanking all the ExCo members of team for performing well and working beyond boundaries to deliver a great show throughout the year.

The lunch ended with a crazy picture of an amazing student council that has transformed into a group of close friends over the year. Now we are not just the Nanyang MBA cohort, of 2015-16 we are Nanyang MBA Family for ever!

The Student Executive Council and Club Co-Chairs of the Nanyang MBA 2015-16

Most of you would have dedicated valuable hours to the GMAT on your quest for the perfect score. You’ve probably also rehearsed replies to all kinds of possible interview questions. But have you put enough effort into your resume? You definitely should, because a resume written for an MBA admissions committee isn’t the same thing as one that you send to prospective employers. In other words, a bit of tweaking here and there won’t work.

This is what you need to do:

Quantify Your Achievements:

Talking about your professional achievements in terms of words or self-praise is a no-no. Your resume needs to include quantifiable data to set the context of your accomplishments. So be honest and write the figures to show what kind of a difference you made. For example, instead of saying that you were a part of a well-known marketing programme, include the percentage of new customers you helped the organisation acquire. Another example: Led a team of four people to increase downloads of app X, resulting in a 12% increase in downloads that quarter.

Keep it Brief:

The Nanyang MBA’s admission guidelines tell you that they don’t expect more than a three-page resume. So do the admissions committee a favour by keeping it concise and professional. Use to-the-point headline-style writing. Do not try to pack in excessive information by using a small font size – size 10 to 12 is the norm. If you find it overflowing, delete the unnecessary points. Remember that a long, cluttered resume can give people the idea that you cannot communicate well.

Exclude What Isn’t Needed:

When you are applying to the Nanyang MBA, you are introducing yourself to admissions officials who want to know if you have the leadership ability. Some applicants make the mistake of including information that isn’t required. A photograph, and your height and weight, are not a part of your resume. If you have lots of technical knowledge on a subject, the resume is not the place to write paragraphs on it. Personal interests should be included only if they make you stand out as a candidate. That means that reading science fiction or working out doesn’t make the cut. But more significant events like a published book or a charitable fundraiser where you created a big impact should be present.

Keep the Education Details Brief:

The education section of your resume should contain your educational history in chronological order. You need to mention the areas of study and any significant achievements such as making it to the Dean’s List or achieving a top rank in class. Make it easy to scan so that the reader can quickly identify the schools and years to arrive at a sense of where your background.

Run a Final Check:

Is every point on your resume important? Have you missed out on any position or activity that could showcase a particular skill set that you have? Can anybody reading your resume detect your career path? Does it support your career development goals? And have you started each point with a strong action verb like ‘generated’, ‘maximised’ or ‘spearheaded’?

The Nanyang Business School MBA programme is on the lookout for individuals who will be successful as leaders and in highly collaborative work environments. You need to show them that you have the skills that can lead to success. Keep the above pointers in mind and share your MBA relevant skills such as teamwork, collaboration, innovation, etc. with them.

A good manager has to have the key skills required to manage teams in every country where the company operates in. With the globalised industry expanding, to take advantage of cost-effective technical expertise and other benefits that may not be present in the home location, cross cultural team management is more vital than ever before. Whether you’re sitting in a foreign office or holding a meeting via video chat, you need to understand, respect, and integrate each culture and its people into your system.

Here’s how you can do it:

Focus on daily communication:

Communication is the major chunk of effective team management. When you’re interacting with individuals from a culture that isn’t your own, you need to keep cultural norms and habits in mind. For example, many eastern cultures are fairly rigid regarding the hierarchies in the office. That means that they won’t be used to open discussions where subordinates speak their minds too. And bringing up certain topics may be a taboo because good workers aren’t expected to speak about or report such things. Some managers think that merely asking everybody to speak up does the job, but it doesn’t. Changing beliefs and long-term patterns is never easy. So take the time out to encourage each person in the team to talk to you on a one-on-one basis too. Work out a process that can give you accurate information about how the project is going without seeming like you are being insensitive to their ways. At NBS, you’ll get expert training on this in the comprehensive Leading People Globally module. Also take a look at the programme structure to understand how you can become a well-rounded MBA graduate:

Build an awareness of the differences:

Cultural differences stand out even as you travel from one state of a country to another. Like in India where you have hundreds of languages and enough cuisines to make you wonder if you have entered a new country each time you visit a new state. Difference should never be seen as a detractor because it can actually bring more skills and knowledge to the table. Successful managers do their research and don’t just notice the differences and ignore them. Building trust is impossible without understanding. As you continue to identify differences in the way things are said, done or perceived, find out where the differences are coming from. For instance, is something that they’re doing stemming from a religious belief? In fact, during the Nanyang MBA programme, you will get a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in another culture.

Keep your language positive:

Always keep negatives out of your conversations. That includes the use of negative language, negative tone, and negative body language. So you and other team members who are new to the culture will not frown and raise eyebrows or roll their eyes if you don’t understand or agree with a point. Also avoid saying ‘I disagree’ or ‘You can’t be serious?’ Instead, you can say ‘I do not quite understand what you are saying’ or ‘Can you please elaborate this for us?’ If there is a language barrier and you work heavily with that team, why not attempt to learn the language? Ideas and communication might flow better then.

Working with teams from different cultural backgrounds is challenging. But good management can prevent the risks that can occur from a lack of understanding and contrasting values and attitudes since all of these factors affect how work is done.

A NBS alumni working for Lazada, South-East Asia´s number one e-commerce player, was invited to give a workshop on business analytics and advanced excel to the current batch of MBA students.

Sunny Jain (NBS MBA Class of 2013) has over 6 years of experience of working for technology companies as well as financial institutions. Over the last 2 years he has been working as a pricing manager with Lazada, who recently made it into news with regards to its acquisition by Alibaba.

Sunny provided thought-provoking insight into the ways of working of e-commerce firms, especially with regards to the key performance indicators and the challenges that various firms face to remain competitive. In the second half of the course, he offered an excel learning session wherein he gave sample case questions based on data populated in an excel file.

The current MBA students who signed up for the workshop learnt to build pivot tables and simple statistical data models that allowed them to understand e-commerce dynamics and generated insights pertaining to an annual sales report of a hypothetical company. The speaker proved that Excel is indeed a powerful tool and stated that learning to build complex data models catering to various business challenges is indispensable to be well prepared for the corporate world.

The 3-hours sharing session was very insightful and after multiple “aha”-moments, the participating students left the room with many valuable takeaways from the workshop. Eventually, the lecturer closed the day with the recommendation to spend 5% of earnings every year to upgrade one´s skills – an interesting tip that the MBA students, who are to graduate soon, will certainly take to heart!

“Do good work and enjoy the work that you do. Money will follow. Make sure that you don’t work for money alone (As the sole aim!).”

With these words, Professor Tan signed off the Derivatives and Risk Management course, the last elective module for the MBA students of 2016 who chose the Banking and Finance Track. Derivatives, much hyped and complex financial instruments, were created with the aim of risk management in finance. However, they are predominantly used for speculation and trading. Hence, Prof Tan asked the class to always wear two hats while analysing derivatives: Are you going to manage risk? Or are you going to trade?

The Derivatives classes were exclusively scheduled on weekends, but as the class size was small and the topic was interesting indeed, all sessions were quite engaging and nobody minded weekend work. The class participants discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from the creation of structure products, various risk mitigation strategies used by corporations, the fall of Lehman brothers and many more, and learnt from a variety of case studies discussed during lectures.

After the last class session, Prof Tan invited his students to a celebratory meal to Spruce at Bukit Timah, which was a fire station prior to it being renovated to a modern day bar/bistro. The trip to Spruce marked the closure of elective classes for the MBA class of 2015/16 and Spruce´s location in beautiful greenery, overlooking a mountain, served to be the ideal getaway to clear the mind after a whole day class . Tower beers were being emptied and a lively discussion on topics such as cultural diversity, returns of VC firms and even the Chinese preference of Tibetan Mastiff dogs ensued. It was time to celebrate.

Before leaving the event, all students cheered Prof Tan for his upcoming Gobi Desert Challenge wherein he and his EMBA team will represent the Nanyang Business School in a daunting desert challenge over the course of 4 days, and everyone promised to take the message from Professor Tan to heart: Make sure to give back to society.

The Derivatives Class Participants celebrate the completion of course work